Alex and Myles finished up all their parts.

Jenya’s toms are bleeding into Seth’s bass mics on “The Gates” so he’s going to do his bass part over.

Seth Ford-Young

Oz Fritz at work.

Last night’s show at the Climate went well.  What an enthusiastic audience!

I learned two important things.

1. We’ve outgrown the Climate Theater.  We sold out 3 days before the show.

2. The way I move my body on stage informs the way I sing.  The stage was tight and cramped last night.  I felt restricted.  Like if I stomped my feet or moved them around I’d break something.  If you’ve seen me live before, you know I like to move when I sing.  Having to stand still was a serious challenge and I realize how important it is for me to have space on stage.

The Climate show was the last bit of preparation for recording the new album.  I’ve been workshopping some of this material solo for years.  Getting to know it.  Trying different tempos, keys and feels.  I added Seth Ford-Young, my bassist and best friend back to the mix in October, the first month of our residency at the Dark Room.  In November we brought Myles Boisen on guitar and Chris Grady back into the mix for the second month of Dark Room Shows.  December we brought our percussionist Jenya Chernoff back and began working with our new cellist Alex Kelly in weekly rehearsals.  We played as a sextet every Thursday in January at CSC with rehearsals in between.  Then we took 2 weeks off in February before we went on retreat in Occidental.  Since then we’ve had two sold out shows including last night.  Now we have two days off before we go into the studio.

I’m thrilled with results of the strategy we took in preparing for this album.  The band is tight musically and personally.  There is so much love between us.  I’ve been told that it comes through on stage and I’m hoping it comes through in the recordings.

Now my job is to fulfill my teaching obligations today then to rest up and take really good care of myself.

On the teaching note, I’m happy to announce that I will not be renewing my contract with the middle school I’ve been teaching at.  I’m going to be focused on the music, private lessons and my Embodied Singing courses.  I love teaching kids.  But the combination of performing regularly, running a business and teaching middle school is just too exhausting for me.

I’m happy to announce that our show at the Climate on March 4 is sold out. And it is completely sold out. Meaning that even if we’ve been good friends for 20+ years I cannot get you in. I got phone calls, emails and text messages from over a dozen people yesterday asking if I could help them out. I can’t. Sorry.

We will be moving into larger rooms now. I’m looking for a theater that seats 150-200. I’m also going to look into playing at Yoshi’s. Its a great listening room. I’ll also look into the Swedish American Hall above Cafe duNord.

I’m sitting alone in the rehearsal space. OAEC calls this the meeting room. We call it the rehearsal space.

I just built a fire in the wood stove and brewed some tea. I already brushed my teeth, read a little bit form an inspiring book, and prayed on my knees at the side of my bed. I pray every morning. I pray to life itself. My basic prayer is “Take me and use me as a servant of love, compassion, and transformation. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Sometimes I’ll list all the people, things and situations I’m grateful for. Today I listed each member of my ensemble, Alex Kelly, Seth Ford-Young, Jenya Chernoff, Chris Grady and Myles Boisen. They are such wonderful people and I am so grateful to be working with them. I’m also grateful to our executive producer Murray Jason who put the money up for us to come on this rehearsal intensive/retreat. This has been an incredible experience and I know that our intimacy with the material and each other will come through in the recording.

I hope that this album touches people in a deep way. I hope it inspires. I think it will. The material certainly moves me. That’s why I feel so called to make it. This work isn’t about my ambitions but about my calling. I have to make this work and get it out to the world. And everything I’ve needed to make it happen has been provided. That’s a good sign. I believe in what we’re doing.

I mentioned transformation early. That’s a word that has been used quite a lot in new age circles so it has some woo woo connotations. But transformation doesn’t look like unicorns and rainbows. Transformation hurts and is deep, dark and dirty. That is one of the primary themes of this work.

I’m sitting in the rehearsal room with our percussionist Jenya as we both check our email and such. There’s a rooster crowing in the valley behind us and the sun is casting long morning shadows.

The sky is perfectly clear.

I’m going to load the ensemble into Jenya’s van and we’re going to drive over Coleman Valley Road to the Ocean. This road is my favorite. Instead of following a creek or river to the ocean like most roads, it goes right over the hills. The view as you descend on the Western side is incredible. And along the way there are lots of beautiful spots, especially Coleman Valley. When I was focused on cycling I used to ride over Coleman Valley Road to the ocean on a regular basis. I also helped landscape a property out here 2 summers ago. I hope to buy a little piece of land with a cabin on it out here someday.

Today we will be going through all the material again, this time taking in all the notes and working through sections over and over if we need to.

We’ve decided that we don’t want to rehearse some of the material like “Been in the Storm So Long” and “Take Me to the Water” because we want them to be loose and raw.

Other songs like “Delilah” and “The Gates” call for refinement so we’ll spend a lot of time on those today.

We’ll work through the material til dinner with breaks for lunch and the Coleman Valley Rd. field trip. Then after dinner we are going to perform the material for the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center residents and staff. They are great people and I like being able to do this for them and its good for us to see how the music behaves in front of people.

Off to breakfast.